A Call from Capital One

I don’t often post follow-ups to previous articles, especially after just a few days. But following Tuesday’s post on two-cycle billing, a couple of things happened that deserve mention.

Understanding Grace Periods
Several readers suggested that what I experienced was not two-cycle billing but the lack of a grace period. Special thanks especially to Kitty, who linked to the American Express document on understanding grace periods. Kitty wrote:

If you didn’t pay your previous month’s bill in full, grace period no longer applies, and you are charged interest ON ALL NEW PURCHASES until you pay another bill in full. After you do it, your grace period starts to apply again, but you still have interest that accrued on all new purchases you made in the meantime.

So, when I accidentally paid my credit card bill $100 short, the grace period for the next billing cycle went away. In order for me to regain my grace period, I’d need to pay the bill in full two months in a row. This isn’t two-cycle billing, despite what the Capital One customer service rep told me.

A Call from Capital One
Meanwhile, Kathy from Capital One customer service left a comment:

Please note that Capital One does not use two cycle billing; we never have. Two cycle billing is when a company computes finance charges on the average daily balance of the last 60 days rather than just the last 30 days. What that means is that they will go back two billing periods before the cardholder sent in their payment, and average the daily balance of all 60 days.

Capital One does not use two cycle billing. If your closing was today for example, we would stop, go back 30 days, and take the average daily balance of those last 30 days, assess finance charges and then send out your statement. This is one-cycle billing.

Kathy was able to track down my account information, including my phone number, so she gave me a call. We had a pleasant chat.

She confirmed that what GRS readers had suggested — that the issue was with the lack of grace period — was, in fact, correct. Kathy explained that with two-cycle billing, the credit card company computes the “average daily balance” (which is what they charge interest on) not just on the current month, but on the previous month, as well. That’s not what happened in my case.

In my case, when I mistakenly paid my bill $100 short, my account began to accumulate finance charges. During the second month, I paid my bill in full. But because I was carrying a balance, the grace period for that month didn’t apply, which means I still accrued finance charges. Again, the only way to get rid of finance charges is to pay my bill in full two months in a row.

I think I understand things now.

During our conversation, Kathy offered to refund the finance charges I had accrued — not just the second month’s finance charge, but the first month’s charge, as well. I felt almost guilty accepting this offer, but I did so.

Conclusion
Now, I realize I’m in a sort of special position. I have a public blog that gets enough attention for Capital One to notice and respond to my complaint. Most people don’t have that sort of leverage.

Still, I’m grateful for the way Capital One handled this, especially considering the entire thing stemmed from a stupid mistake on my part. I’m not about to become a spokesman for Capital One, but I’m satisfied with the way things worked out.

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Hey JD
Congrats on the win with the cc. I used to work for citibank citicards customer service and while you pause to pray for my soul let me give some hints:
1. if you have been a pretty good customer and pay in full every month call if you get an interest or late fee charge, it’s not written in stone!
2. be nice/pleasant when you call and be amazed and what can be done
3. lower interest rates are usually just a call away. if the card doesn’t have a lower rate available there’s a different one the company offers that does and sice most customer service reps get commissions on sales, once you say “lower rate” we are going to try to do everything to find something with a lower rate to make both of us happy.

Good Housekeeping does this. They use their position to help the little guy with specific problems them publish them. Say there is a rebate that isn’t being sent, Good Housekeeping will call public relations on behalf of the person and ask for a full explanation then publish the results.

You might want to consider something similar. If you posted a specific problem of a single person once per month you give their problem exposure that may result in similar action. It might not be worth the work, but it’s always good to have ideas on the back burner. Maybe even sic your new staff writer on the company to try to resolve the issue with public relations ;).

I’m not very concerned about how a credit company assesses fees and finance charges because I don’t ever carry a balance, but I appreciate the follow up article because, as you demonstrated, mistakes can happen. The real value in this article is seeing that Capitol One is willing to work with their customers (so long as you get past the first line of defense).

I was looking for a new credit card the other day for a project I’m undertaking and a satisfactory report from you sealed the deal for me.

On your short-pay mistake: I know you pay attention to Ramit. Have you considered automating your credit card payment since you always pay in full every month?

Don’t feel guilty accepting the waived charges – I have found that many companies (well, at least as of a year ago – things have likely tightened since then) will waive finance charges if you CALL TO ASK, if you have a consistent record of paying in full. This is even more true if it’s fairly obvious a mistake was made (i.e. transposed numbers) and you intended to pay in full (or have already sent in a second payment to make up the difference.)

I have found it very important to call when a one-time problem arises, because you can clear it from your record for your next “one-time” problem. Case in point: my payment was posted a day late once, and I called to ask them to waive the late fees. Before I even had a chance to argue that it was their fault (I had sent it in plenty early), they agreed to remove the “late” from my record and waive the fees, since I had a multi-year history of paying on time. The next month, the same thing happened, and the fees were once again waived, because I had a history of paying on time (which I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t asked before). I started sending in my payment even earlier after that, though….

That’s great service. However I’d still move away from Cap One, and look at a credit union’s card instead. I strongly dislike the business model of big banks! Many credit unions have cash-back deals similar to the one you have, and usually will have better policies. And if you *still* manage to make a mistake, at least the money’s going to a local business. :-)

The point I got from these two articles is that in every company there are at least some great customer service people who will go out of their way to help you if they can. I have been on both ends and I know that even if the company itself has a bad reputation (or a good one!) that doesn’t necessarily have to be your experience. This goes along with what I have learned from having student loans: if someone is rude to you or says they can’t help you with a problem, just keep calling back until a new person can.

I’m an avid reader of your blog and have been completely debt-free for 1 1/2 years. This credit card post has served to further convince me that I don’t have the time or the mental stamina to keep up with credit card accounts anymore, no matter how many benefits, points, perks, miles, discounts, and rewards they might claim to offer. Getting rid of the credit cards and instituting a firm no-credit policy was the single best thing I’ve ever done to get my financial life in order.

what I think is interesting is that it was difficult for you to understand what was going on — I really hope the new rules for credit card companies will include simpler statements of their rules. Today I got a mailing about a car card I’ve had for years. I recently was sent a new card because to extend the expiration date. the new mailing included these sentences:

The first year the Annual fee will be waived. Thereafter, the Annual Fee is $25.00 and will be assessed on the Account at the beginning of each one-year period. Thereafter, if you maintain your primary account relationship, (excluding any credit card account) the Annual Fee will be waived.

Now, I have never paid a fee on this card. I took the mailing into my bank and the customer service person couldn’t explain what this might possibly mean, either. It’s very poorly written (not that they couldn’t even decide if they always wanted to capitalize the “F” in “fee”) and while I don’t really expect them to ever charge me a fee (I have multiple accounts at that bank), it’s annoying to have to read this stuff to begin with…

Oh good grief, Dan. I’m not shilling for Capital One. In fact, I intentionally left out any links to the company’s web sites just so there could be no confusion about my intentions. Apparently, that wasn’t clear enough.

I posted this because I think the clarification is important. My previous article contained misinformation, and I wanted to set the record straight. You’ll note that I also mentioned American Express in this post (and linked to their site). Why not accuse me of shilling for them.

I’ve never shied away of mentioning the companies I use, for good or ill: Fidelity, Mini Cooper, Capital One, etc. I’m not endorsing them. They’re not paying me. I’m just reporting the facts.

Okay, I’m violating my own rule here by responding to what is probably just a troll. Will now go back into lonely hermit writer mode…

JD, your blog is read by thousands. It is imperative that you do better research in the future. If someone in the mainstream media published as many errors as you and Trent from “The Simple Dollar” do, you’d probably get sued.

Thanks for the follow-up since it probably will help many others understand a little better how things work.
It’s great that Cap One pays attention and followed up with you.
Gee I wish my Ex-phone company FairPoint would do that with the blog I recently wrote about them! I don’t get any traffic yet, so doubt that will happen, LOL!

@JF (#17)
That is a fair concern, and one I share. I do work hard to avoid errors, but there’s no question that some slip through. I’d like to point out, though, that the mainstream media is riddled with errors. I’ve had some limited exposure to big name media outlets, and let me assure you that they screw up stuff all the time. :)

This actually gives me a more negative view of Capitol One. They weren’t willing to work with you when you were a “regular customer”. The second they found out you had an audience they were more than willing to “make things right”.

Also, JF, that’s one reason I’m so reluctant to wander too far afield, to cover topics about which I have little exposure. As I get outside my areas of expertise, the risk for error goes up dramatically.

I’m just finishing a couple of posts on the U.S. budget and taxes. I’ve done my damnedest to be sure my figures are correct, but I suspect I’ve made mistakes. If I covered this sort of stuff all the time, I’d feel more comfortable.

It seems a little unethical to use your position for your benefit. I think you felt bad about the refund because you recognized this. You knew it was wrong to take the money only because you had a popular forum to voice your opinion. They only refunded you because of this, they denied you when you were joe everyman.

I think it would have been better to refuse the refund. OTOH thanks for clearing up what the problem really was.

Big media outlets like the Wall Street Journal post corrections to previous articles all the time. Everyone makes mistakes. J.D. is no different. Had he not posted this correction article, no one would ever have even known the first article was wrong.

They tried to jack my rate to > 20% a couple of years back after a payment that was late by 2 days even though I mailed it with plenty of time and not a late payment in many preceding years. I argued with them on the phone for about 20 minutes and never got anywhere so I immediately transferred the balance to American Express and cancelled that card. I’ve never had a problem with AmEx.

Capital One pulled similar stuff with a couple of family members but they just rolled over.

I tell everyone who mentions Capital One to run away as fast as you can.

I had Capital One did this to me before, and their answer was also to pay in full for two months, including the two finance charges.

Interestingly enough, this doesn’t happen with my Coscto American Express. I was late to pay for one month, got a finance charge, paid that in full – and I never got a second finance charge on the next bill. Maybe AMEX is better at this and automatically waives any finance charge that may happen on the next billing month.

Credit card companies are very tricky when it comes to finance charges.

@branderson (#23)
Maybe what I should do is take this $25 and use it to start…well, I don’t know what. A financial literacy fund? Something. I’m headed in that direction, anyhow, eventually. This could be the seed money! :)

J.D., you’ve made it clear that you’re a regular guy wading through the complexities of personal finance. Please don’t apologize for trivial mistakes. Also, I’m somewhat surprised your site has trolls. We just can’t escape the dullards.

I, a regular person, had the same thing happen with my Capital One card, although it was along the lines of a $27 transposition error rather than $100. I called Capital One, whined a bit (albeit nicely), and Capital One reversed the finance charges. The first person I spoke with said no way so I asked for a supervisor.

On the other hand, I asked for my limit to be raised above $20,000 because I was remodeling my house, and I wanted to put the materials on the (rewards) card, but they wouldn’t raise it. I never carry a balance so I was slightly perplexed as to why they wouldn’t do it–the CSR just said they don’t do it by customer request. Turns out I didn’t reach the $20,000 limit in one month anyway, but I was concerned at the time.

JD,
Good that you got your money back. But the only reason Cap One paid you back was the amount of negative publicity your blog would generate. I would say $25 came cheap for them to get off the hook, kind of.

So who IS paying you? There are ads on your blog for many different financial institutions, some of which are competing directly with the company which you are writing about. Presumably you have financial relationship with them, but I cannot find ANY of your financial relationship disclosed on your blog.

You do an exemplary of avoiding paid links, like others bloggers fall into, and have a very high level of trust. But I still feel there is a certain level of transparency missing. For example, how would have handled the situation if it were with one of the companies who was sponsoring your blog?

One of my Credit Cards waived not only the interest but a late payment charge just by my asking. JD didn’t escalate his desire to have a refund on the charges. He was willing to accept the charges as a lesson learned.

Many companies watch blogs, Twitter and other social networking sites for negative information and work with those who raise the flag to resolve the problem. Take a look at http://consumerist.com/ and you’ll see that it’s fairly common.

Spoiler Alert!! J.D. will now have these little “problems” with a different company each week, culminating in a pleasant chat with a representative, and a new blog post recommending their service! C’mon J.D., the cat’s out of the bag….sigh, how much did Capital One pay you for this little farce?

I think the real story here is that a Capital One employee actually reads JD’s blog! Maybe they just *have* to do it for keeping the peace, but nonetheless, it’s great because it shows that there are friendly and helpful people inside these big companies.
I do like one of the other suggestions to start a fund / tracking list of people’s issues with getting service or addressing confusing parts of their personal finance journey.
Mistakes that teach you lessons are quite valuable. But now we’ve all learned from JD’s mistakes and we don’t have to see the $25 charge on our credit card, so that makes learning from others’ mistakes even more VALUABLE.

I don’t think it’s a matter of your leverage; I think your average consumer *can* get change to happen. In my experience, you sometimes have to go up the ladder, be polite, firm, and repetitive, but it works.

~Lyn, who spent years in Accounts Payable doing this for a company, and thus is more comfortable asking over and over again.

Bully for them for giving you a ring. I don’t even know JD and I can get in touch with him whenever I want, so I don’t think that Kathy looking up his info is out-of-bounds.

+1 for CO customer service.

I own my own company and I have google alerts and twitter searches and all that to see what people are saying about me so I can keep people happy.

JD: I didn’t take this as a shill for CO nor do I think you should have refused the refund. Sorry, if I made that mistake and figured out how, I wouldn’t refuse my money thinking that would magically make me forget my lesson.

Thanks for posting the update. This is good customer service for Capital One to have done the refund. I have gotten many refunds from different companies, sometimes for my mistakes and sometimes for theirs. I think the bottom line is that customers want honest pricing and clear rules, and don’t want to feel like they got snagged by a fine-print “gotcha”. Companies know that most people either won’t notice the fee, or won’t complain about it. So when one of the few people do actually call, they might as well give a refund rather than alienate a motivated customer.

This stuff boggles my mind. I have no idea what any of that even means. I feel this ends up being the #1 reason I don’t have a CC. Not that I don’t have good willpower (I really do with these things…), but that I feel like I’m going to be cheated on one end or the other because I just can’t keep up with aprs, fees, special charges, all the fine print… just one more hassle in my life I don’t need.

JD, I have made a few similar mistakes with several credit card companies (Discover, AMEX, Bank of America, Capital One) and every time I have asked for a refund of the charges (interest, and fees). I have been granted this request every time (noted blog not necessary). Any customer focused company would gladly refund a one time fee and finance charge for the stream of recurring revenue that they receive from merchants who accept your credit card. I can guarantee everyone one thing, you will not get a refund of the charges if you do not ask.

JF – I think JD can write whatever he darn pleases, even if he does have 70,000 readers subscribed. It’s called the 1st amendment, and freedom of speech!

If he recommends one savings strategy, and it doesn’t work for someone else, that’s too bad. No one forces a person to read JD’s site and take his advice. There’s no malicious intent, and JD is just doing what he thinks is right.

I’ve stopped reading all the comments because the trolls are getting ridiculous but I will point out that in JD’s original conversation with the Capital One, THE CSO SAID IT WAS TWO-CYCLE BILLING. So fair enough JD didn’t get it right but neither did the Capital One representative he was talking to.

As for whether his blog’s popularity got rid of the fee, sure it helped. But as JD pointed out himself Ramit would have been able to get the fee waived during the first conversation. So the blog doesn’t give him a total advantage over the blogless, it just helps make up for his lack of negotiating skills in the first place.

It is okay to accept the refund for the mistake. They are still making plenty of money and they get great PR from it. And you get forgiveness.

I don’t think you are shilling for the company. (That was out of line, IMO).

As to mistakes. So what? You are supposed to be “normal guy”. That’s why we LIKE YOU! You don’t “know everything” and are “learning as you go along”. The fact that you didn’t know this about c/c is something that obviously not everyone else knew already.

This means one of several things. 1. many people never make mistakes with paying off their c/c in full each month 2. people don’t look closely at the bills and haven’t noticed this has happened to them 3. people are carrying balances all the time and just pay what they are told to pay or 4. they don’t have c/c and don’t have the bother (or the rewards).

I can’t believe how many people told you to drop the card. That is like saying give up your $400+ rewards that are waiting for you. If you cancel the card now, you won’t get them, I’m pretty sure.

I thought the whole situation was great. Great for Capital One (I am a satisfied CO customer, btw), and great for you and apparently a learning article for many, many of your readers. Many more are on the same page as you financially than possibly want to admit it.

“if…mainstream media published as many errors as you…youâ€™d probably get sued.”

That is the funniest thing I’ve read all week! In my news editing class, one of our daily assignments was to find errors (grammatical and factual) in three major newspapers–there were plenty.

Also, I think the shilling comments are out of line. This is someone’s blog, so it stands to reason that he’s going to share his personal experiences.

I’ve had bad experiences with Cap One, so I cancelled my card awhile back. They were one of the companies that, according to Maxed Out, like to give small lines of credit, in the hopes that people will max it out, then send the person an application for another card with a small line of credit, eventually collecting more and more late fees and interest. That wasn’t my issue, but they did issue a small line of credit to me–like 10 percent of the line on my other two cards.

As for automating payment, there is another PF blog that reported that Wells Fargo closed their business credit line without any notice. The writer is extremely frugal, and they always pay the balance on time. The only thing she did differently was to automate their payment. The company refused to give her valid reason for closing the account, only “tips” about paying on time, etc., which was ridiculous because she’s never paid a cent of interest. Hard to say if the auto payment was the reason, but interesting, nontheless. Weeks after they closed the account, she finally got the notice that the were going to close the account.

I am going to second what Mo #20 stated. These companies don’t care about the ‘small’ guys. As soon as they find out someone has an audience or can infulence people to accept their products they will do whatever they can to make it ‘pleasant’ for them. The woman looked up your information and contacted you. Wow! It must be nice. But if you were a regular ‘joe’ guess what?? You would never have been refunded that money and as you stated clearly “It was your fault”…….

J.D., thanks for posting your experience here. I think it was enlightening and interesting, and the follow-up was great.

For the record, I think that the “troll” -like comments can just be removed. Trolls are very ego driven. Once they see they are not even being published anymore, they will move on to the next website. They really bring down the level of conversation, and while your articles are always great, the conversations and comments I see here are a big draw for me as well.

Maybe you can do an opinion piece here on how to handle trolls, and let the readers decide?

Don’t feel guilty accepting the refund – I usually pay my card in full on time – on the rare occassions I’ve made a similar mistake my Cc company has ALWAYS extended me that courtesy because they can see my history on line

JD: Thanks for your transparency. Your ability to publically admit when you’ve made a mistake is refreshing. Also, I’m glad you realize the type of influence you have — that is something that is earned and should be leveraged carefully.

From the other post JD was pretty open that he was not assertive when he asked for his charges refunded. I think its a good example of how someone might not be comfortable being assertive in one method of communication (and being penalized for it!) but being talented at explaining yourself in writing (on his blog). In general, people that are comfortable negotiating in person have a very high advantage financially. So you don’t need to have a blog!

I don’t recall the previous article specifically, but I don’t think JD originally asked for the finance charge(s) to be refunded. If he had, they probably would have done it regardless of what he does for a living. If you have a good reputation of paying on time with the company they will always give you at least one forgiveness and refund, sometimes more.

If the person you talk to the first time won’t refund you, say thanks and keep calling back until you find one that will. I have had finance charges reversed and 0% interest reinstated, etc. a few times now just by picking up the phone and being polite and persistent. The cc people know the difference between mistake and delinquent- you just have to find one that is sympathetic.

Wow, what’s up with all the spite in the comments all of a sudden? OH NOES, did a blogger just admit that he’s now all-knowing and infallible? Admitting and correcting a mistake does not make him a shill, nor does it make him a bad person.

I haven’t fat-fingered amounts yet (I try to copy-and-paste rather than retype when possible) but I’ve screwed up and made a payment late. My understanding was that I could stop having to pay finance charges on new purchases by paying the full current balance. I.e. whatever I missed from the last statement plus whatever I’ve spent since then. In other words, bringing the account balance to zero would restore the grace period on all subsequent transactions.

I could be wrong about that, because it’s only happened a couple times and I don’t think I did the math to determine whether I’d been charged interest on purchases after I paid the full balance, but that was my understanding.

I’m still peeved at them though, they raised my interest rate “because of the economy” and would not lower it. I’ve been their customer for 8 years, pay on time and more than the minimum! They still wouldn’t do it….. =(

I did not read all the comments, but I believe if you had been a bit more persistent you would have had the charges removed in the first place. Having the blog is just you being more persistent. My wife and I have made mistakes like this before, and we always call and have the charges removed. We just talk about how good of customer we are and have been, and then tell them it would be a shame to take our business elsewhere.

This makes me feel a little squicky about both Capital One AND the customer in question…. They weren’t going to refund you until they knew you had a blog and an audience, and you didn’t feel right about asking for a refund, but once it was offered, you accepted. A little ethically wobbly on both sides.

I think you people need to all get a life and leave JD alone. Every single one of you (myself included) would do the exact same thing in terms of reversing a credit card surcharge. Whether or not we manage to get the charge reversed, due to any kind of “status” or “unethical grey areas”, is moot as this is not the issue. The issue, is the charge itself and JD not understanding why it happened. Besides, who cares… it’s a credit card company. A CREDIT CARD COMPANY! I hope they lose $25 and a two million more… complete with 18% interest :)

One way or another — whether the mechanism was double-billing, whether the first CSR didn’t know what he was talking about, or whether an incomprehensible and irrational policy on the grace period was hidden in submicroscopic print — you still got gouged. Given the concession, Capital One evidently knows it.

And readers should proceed with caution in doing business with this company.

So let me get this straight… some of the readers here can’t handle their finances and it is the other persons/lenders fault?
it is always some one else’s fault, isn’t it?
… the credit card company charged you over the limit fee, late fee etc. but you never cared reading the contract and honoring it, did you?
… the cell phone company charged you overuse fee..well you couldn’t keep track of your usage?
… You cant pay your mortgage so you are going to default and drag all your neighbors down with you… Who forced you to buy an over inflated property in the first place? was renting not stoking your ego enough? didn’t you get greedy as well?

…so and so on…

The only common thing I see around here is that every Company out there is evil and out to take your money… but I never see people owing up to their responsibilities. Nobody ever accepts their own mistakes anymore. The same thing is reflected with our politicians. They are no different from you and me….it is ALWAYS some one elses fault.

So sick of hearing you people complain.

The whole point of JD’s blog was to show you people to be careful about YOUR finances, be responsible and keep YOUR S#$% together and learn from his experience. Instead it’s been turned into a forum to bash the lender, bash JD for being a shill, bash everybody but yourself. Why is it forgotten that you asked for that money to be lent to you? You agreed to pay it back, or pay interest on it…simple. if you can’t pay back what you borrowed, it’s YOUR fault.

This is a wonderful blog JD, I have been a long time reader and I am happy to say I have passed it along to a few friends. It is nice when you have the traffic to get the big companies customer service departments to notice you, I am happy this got sorted out for you! Thanks again for all of the helpful information here.

Whenever dealing with a customer service person (especially from a health insurance company, follow the above advice about being polite, but also ask every person you speak with for their name and ID# “for my notes on our call today so I can remember our conversation clearly.” I actually take careful notes during every important customer service call and it helps a great deal as I climb the ladder and eventually speak with a manager.

I just stumbled upon your blog through google, and I wanted to thank you for posting this info. Your post did a much better job of explaining their fee structure than their own representatives. I recently found myself in a similar situation, and I just spent 30 minutes on the phone with 2 representatives trying to get a clear answer. Unfortunately it seems like many of their own representatives don’t fully understand the finance charge structure and blindly read off of their scripts.

I’ll try to follow the advice above about getting the fee’s reversed, but I’m not getting my hopes up. If only all their reps were as knowledgeable as Kathy.

Does anyone know if other banks follow a similar way off removing the grace period if you are late on a payment? I remember occasionally missing payments in the past with other banks, but I don’t remember getting dinged this hard with fees.

Re: Kevin (#53). I agree. The fact that the company’s own customer service rep gave a complicated yet completely inaccurate explanation is disturbing. That’s not just Capital One though. It happens all the time, and there really doesn’t seem to be any significant consequences for customer service representatives just making things up.

JD – don’t fret about errors – that’s the way you learn, and we learn with you. Please cover the stuff that is your daily “frontline” effort, be it error riddled – then listen to feedback, add corrections to the main text, post followups and link them in the original message – that’s the way you did here and it is the best way.

The newspapers are written in paper and it is harder for them to correct mistakes – net is fluid and allows for corrections.

So dive into whatever fancies and interests you – This makes the content unique and compelling – and gives us the opportunity to give our examples and advice – binding us even more to this place.

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My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

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